When I was a kid you couldn’t pay me to eat carrot cake. I know, I must have been crazy…but I remember thinking it was ridiculous to put vegetables in a cake and that it must taste horrible. You might be thinking I was one of those vegetable-hating kids, but that’s not the case. I loved carrots, but I was a purist when it came to food. I’d eat almost any vegetable, but if they were somehow touching on my plate then we had a problem. Carrots in a cake was just too much for me.

I can’t exactly remember the day I got over my irrational food-combination issues, but homemade carrot cake is one of the reasons I’m glad I did. Who would have thought that those sweet little root vegetables could make a cake taste this great??

Simple Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Now because I’m a purist, the ingredients in this recipe for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting are simple and basic. There are no nuts or pineapple in the batter; just carrots, buttermilk, and all kinds of good old fashioned sugar and spice. You are going to love it!

For the frosting:

For garnish:

1/2cupsweetened toasted coconut

1/4cupchopped walnuts

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare two 9-inch round cake pans by greasing them well and lining the bottom with a circular piece of parchment paper. It's also a good idea to grease on top of the parchment paper and flour the cake pans as well.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt to a large bowl and whisk them together until combined.

Add the shredded carrots to the dry ingredients and whisk them in until they're evenly distributed throughout the dry ingredients.

To a separate bowl, add the eggs, canola oil and buttermilk and whisk them together well.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine them with a rubber spatula just until no streaks of flour remain.

Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared cake pans and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the cake layers comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from their pans and cool them upside down on cooling racks until they cool completely.

For the frosting:

Add the room temperature cream cheese to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Whip the cream cheese on medium high speed until it's creamy and smooth.

Add the softened butter and the vanilla extract to the cream cheese and continue to whip on medium speed until they're well combined (you might need to scrape down the sides of the bowl at this point).

Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on medium-low speed until it's completely blended and thick. If at this point the frosting is too thick to spread, beat in a tablespoon or two of milk to loosen it up a little bit (add the milk a couple teaspoons at a time just to be sure you don't add too much!).

Once the frosting has reached the right consistency and the cake has cooled completely, frost the cake with a knife or an offset spatula, making sure there's a generous layer of frosting between the layers before frosting the sides and the top.

Recipe Notes

You can frost the cake any way you like, with a rustic swirl pattern or with smooth upward strokes, like I did this time. Once it's frosted, top it with the toasted coconut and chopped walnuts and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two before slicing.

Once it’s chilled, the frosting will set enough that you’ll be able to cut into it cleanly with a warm knife. Just take a look at that deliciousness! The texture of the carrot cake is absolutely moist and tender and the cream cheese frosting is perfectly light and fluffy.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Don’t forget to check out all the other Foodie Mamas’ carrot-inspired recipes linked below!

Thank you so much for sharing this delicious recipe!😊 My dad has been asking me to make a carrot cake for quite some time now. It’s his favourite and the last time I’d baked one for him was almost 10 years ago! Your recipe was perfect and dad loved it as did the rest of my family! So easy to bake and super moist! Absolutely loved it!😊👌

Ive been searching the net over a good couple of months for a great carrot cake recipe, found this a few days ago and decided right away to make it since it didn’t need alot of ingredients and the instructions made it so simple

I chose this recipe for its ingredients and simplicity, as i was looking for something that didn’t overdo things due to it being a 1yr old’s birthday cake, and wanted them to enjoy it as much as the adults.
It took longer to bake, about double the time, as i recently moved and didn’t have multiple cake tins – a standard expectation. As i was putting it together, i thought it may have been a little oil-heavy, but it ensured that the cake stayed perfectly moist – not overdone at all. I have generally had bad experiences with carrot cakes, and I wanted to thank you on the success of this genuinely delicious classic cake. Even the non-veggie eater, and non-sweet eaters in the family loved it! Not to mention 1yr old had a fantastic time discovering its flavours 🙂
The only thing i did differently was to replace the sugars in the frosting with a large dose of honey, which turned out lovely, and omited the trimmings (only for choking worries). I love cottage cheese baked in carrot, and the cream cheese frosting was the perfect compliment to such a cake.
Thank you so much!

1 cup is the American measurement – it doesn’t translate to an exact measurement in grams because it depends on the ingredient (ex: one cup of flour is approximately 120 grams and 1 cup of sugar is approximately 200 grams).

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Hi! I'm so glad you're here! I'm Chrissie. I'm a home cook and baker, wife, and mommy to 2 little ones. I enjoy making healthy meals for my family and baking my heart out. Welcome to my kitchen! For more about me, click here.

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